Innehållsförteckning för April 8, 2019 från Adweek

The drive east from Los Angeles to Palm Springs for decades has been a journey away from the normal to a higher, clearer plain. Desert denizens including the likes of Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor must have felt that in their fabled escapes there. And we at Adweek certainly did last year when we welcomed the return of Brandweek to Palm Springs as a fully reimagined events franchise (and quarterly publication) across two days featuring the most unique and engaging programming, thought leadership and entertainment ever assembled for the brand marketing community. It is now time to once again think of the transformative journey back to Brandweek, set for its second year on Nov. 3-6 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa. And we are well…

PLUTO TV LAUNCHED 2014 AUDIENCE SIZE 12 MILLION MONTHLY USERS LIBRARY VOLUME MORE THAN 2,500 MOVIES, 15,000 TV EPISODES AND 113 LIVE LINEAR CHANNELS AD LOAD 8 TO 12 MINUTES PER HOUR AD REVENUE TRIPLED FROM 2017 TO 2018 CRACKLE PLUS LAUNCHING IN 2019, AFTER THE SONY PICTURES TELEVISION/CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL ENTERTAINMENT DEAL CLOSES (SONY CRACKLE LAUNCHED IN 2007) AUDIENCE SIZE 10 MILLION MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS LIBRARY VOLUME 38,000 HOURS OF PROGRAMMING AD LOAD UNDETERMINED AD REVENUE UNDETERMINED THE ROKU CHANNEL LAUNCHED 2017 AUDIENCE SIZE AMONG THE TOP FIVE CHANNELS BY REACH FOR ROKU’S 27 MILLION ACTIVE USERS LIBRARY VOLUME 10,000 MOVIES AND TV EPISODES, TWO DOZEN LINEAR CHANNELS AD LOAD NO MORE THAN 8 MINUTES PER HOUR AD REVENUE ROKU’S OVERALL PLATFORM REVENUE WAS $420 MILLION LAST…

THE DOCTOR Since Botox has to be injected, consumers need to find a doctor, dentist, PA or RN to administer it. THE POINT Allergan has shipped over 100 million vials of Botox, and each vial contains 100 doses. You do the math. THE PATIENT Over the past two decades, the number of men who’ve received Botox has risen by 325 percent. The story tore across media outlets all over the world last year. In Saudi Arabia, a dozen camels had been disqualified from a beauty contest at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival. A story that ran in The National, a paper published out of the United Arab Emirates, revealed that a crooked veterinarian had been caught trying to improve the facial appearance of his camels—especially the lips. His weapon of…

Big Tech is now more than just big. It’s mammoth—and continuing to thrive. Facebook and Google already account for more than 60 percent of digital ad spend in the U.S. Then there’s Amazon, which already dominates nearly 50 percent of the U.S. ecommerce market. It’s the duopoly’s biggest gest digital advertising competitor at less than 7 percent of digital ad spend, but experts anticipate it will gobble up more digital ad-dollars in coming years. Their domination across many sectors of the U.S. economy—not just advertising—has caught the attention of legislators. Sen. Elizabeth-Warren (D-Mass.) made headlines in March when she called for the breakup of companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google, which she said were hurting small businesses and stifling competition. Warren’s plan would entail spinning off some of those companies’…

In January, almost a year after Viacom CEO Bob Bakish told investors his company was preparing to launch a streaming service in late 2018, Viacom finally unveiled its OTT strategy—but it wasn’t what anyone had been expecting. Instead of creating its own subscription video on demand (SVOD) service—as rivals Disney, Comcast and AT&T are doing—the company had opted to buy Pluto TV, the free, ad-supported streaming video platform, for $340 million. The news left many Viacom investors and partners scratching their heads. “They’re like, ‘You bought what?’ Most of them didn’t even know what it was,” says Bakish. But many of them quickly warmed to the CEO’s new acquisition, which was finalized a month ago, after he and his other execs explained how Pluto is “integral” to Viacom’s distribution and…

When Capital One rolled out its automated fraud-check texting system a few years ago, the bank was surprised to find how many possible answers its customers could come up with to a simple yes-or-no question. While around 85 percent of people responded to the alerts about potentially suspicious credit card activity with a “confirm” or “deny” as directed, the rest of the replies ranged from fat-fingered typos to a “yep, that was me” or even intimate bits of travelogue—“yes, that’s the purse I bought in Philadelphia last weekend while visiting my sister”—recalls Ken Dodelin, the bank’s vice president of conversational artificial intelligence product development. “I like to say that we launched the chatbot a long time ago—just, nobody ever told us,” he says. “Because people were chatting away with us,…

Pharma companies spend untold years and fortunes coming up with brand names for their drugs, but Botox came pretty easily. When Dr. Brin was conducting early trials with Oculinum (the name given to the drug when it was thought to have only potential to treat ocular conditions), he didn’t want to use a trade name in the research papers he was publishing. “I thought a more general way of referring to it was Botox,” he said—a shortening of botulinum toxin type A. “The name stuck,” Brin added.…

American companies are big on slogans (e.g., Nike’s “Just Do It”), often paying agencies small fortunes to create them. But rarely do we hear about the executive who produced one of the first—and did it on his own: IBM founder Thomas Watson, with “Think.” “All of the problems of the world could be settled easily,” he insisted, “if men were only willing to think.” After the founder’s son, Thomas Watson Jr., took IBM’s reins in 1956, Think proliferated in the company culture, appearing on calendars, wall clocks and, as shown here, company notepads. When IBM debuted the first tablet computer in 1992, the name ThinkPad was no coincidence—nor, many say, was Apple’s retort of “Think Different.”…

Truth in advertising is something most Americans think is good. But 26 years ago, one U.K. company took the idea so far that nobody was sure what to think. In its February 15, 1993 issue, Adweek took up the strange case of Death cigarettes. Launched by the Enlightened Tobacco Company (which got the idea from an earlier American version), Death seized on the concept of warning labels mandated for cigarette packs and pushed it to the limit, using messages like “It’s Your Funeral” and “Blow Yourself Away.” As founder B.J. Cunningham told us, Death’s aim was simply to tell the truth. “Cigarette smoking will not make you sexy,” he said. “Cigarette smoking will make you dead.” Trouble was, Death’s cynical swagger elevated it to cult status with teens. Media companies…

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND Name: Cora Powered by: a partnership with IBM Watson Milestone: Equipped with more than 1,000 replies to 200 queries BANK OF AMERICA Name: Erica Powered by: In-house tech Milestone: Surpassed 6 million users last month CAPITAL ONE Name: Eno Powered by: In-house tech Milestone: Reached a 99 percent customer comprehension rate BANK OF MONTREAL Name: BMO Bolt Powered by: a partnership with Finn AI Milestone: Supports more than 200,000 utterances in response to more than 250 questions $5.6 BILLION Total the banking industry is expected to invest into applications like automated customer service agents and fraud prevention in the coming year. (Source: International Data Corporation) $7.3 BILLION Forecast of industrywide cost savings from chatbots in 2023, representing a 3,400 percent increase from 2019 ($209 million). This…

Kathleen Barrett loves watching good video—and helping people making it. As svp of enterprise and creator success at Vimeo, Barrett leads strategy, growth and business for Vimeo’s enterprise business. Barrett oversees Vimeo’s OTT and live video tools, from the subscription video product creators rely on to the OTT channels publishers launch, to make sure they’re helping Vimeo’s customers meet their own business goals. Barrett joined Vimeo from VHX, a video tech startup that Vimeo acquired, where she oversaw operations, finance and human resources after a five-year stint at Goldman Sachs. Barrett explained that “typically, only the most well-funded, largest networks could afford to launch their own Netflix-like channels,” which resulted in lost opportunities for video creators and fans alike. “Before subscriptions, movies would go to film festivals, but if they…

Fearless Voices Recognizes an individual who uses their voice, talent & tools to break through unendurable silence, creating a path for action and change Colleen DeCourcy, co-President & CCO, W+K Brainwave Changes the way a brand or product is marketed (15 years experience) Heidi Browning, CMO & EVP, NHL Ukonwa Ojo, CMO, Cover Girl (Formerly) Anita Patil-Sayed, SVP, Director, Human Truths Group, Dentsu Aegis Network Cherilyn Williams, Director Global Portfolio Marketing, Marriott No Apologies Creating whole new business models or marketplace opportunities (5 years experience) Seema Bansal, Founder, Venus Et Fleur Kiersten Barnet, Global Head, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, Bloomberg LP Jacqueline Corbelli, Founder/Chair/CEO, BrightLine Mish Fletcher, Managing Director Marketing & Communications, Accenture Interactive Paradigm Shift Changing the way a customer segment or target audience is approached (15 years experience) Sophie…